A federal judge has ruled that BP faces a penalty of $13.7 billion under the U.S. Clean Water Act, as a result of the 2010 Gulf oil spill. That penalty is down from the $18 million sought by the U.S. Justice Department. Read More »

A recent op-ed by ILR President Lisa A. Rickard was published today in the Austin American-Statesman, praising Texas legal reform over the past 20 years which has helped "protect individuals, businesses and health care providers from abusive lawsuits by plaintiffs' lawyers." Read More »

The Associated Press today writes about expected litigation from the family of Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who was initially misdiagnosed but then passed away from Ebola after returning from West Africa. Read More »

Six insurance companies are suing an asbestos personal injury trust set up by a U.S. unit of Philips that the insurers "suspect has been making millions of dollars in fraudulent payments to parties that cannot prove they were harmed by the company's asbestos products." Read More »

The 2012 State Liability Systems Ranking Study was conducted for the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform to explore how fair and reasonable the states' tort liability systems are perceived to be by U.S. businesses. Participants in the survey were comprised of a national sample of 1,125 in-house general counsel, senior litigators or attorneys, and other senior executives who indicated that they are knowledgeable about litigation matters at companies with at least $100 million in annual revenues. The 2012 ranking builds on previous years' work, where in each survey year all 50 states are ranked by those familiar with the litigation environment in that state. Prior to these rankings, information regarding the attitudes of the business world toward the legal systems in each of the states had been largely anecdotal. The State Liability Systems Ranking Study aims to quantify how corporate attorneys view the state systems. Read More »